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Many of the group hoping to enjoy a camping trip in Norway had never flown before.

Tragically for the families of the children, the cause of the crash was never established.

A picture showing the burial of victims in a communal grave on August 17, 1961 at Croydon Cemetery (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images)

The official Norwegian Commission air accident report, drawn up together with the British Accident Investigation Board, stated: “The cause of the crash was a deviation from the prescribed flightpath for reasons unknown.”

In 50 years of civil aviation up to that time, it was the worst air accident involving children. With 39 killed, it was Norway’s worst air disaster.

Some of the wreckage of the crashed plane (Photo by E. Ericksen/Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The population of Croydon was united in grief and some 100,000 people visited Croydon Cemetery, to visit the victims' graves, in the days, weeks and months that followed.

Joan Matlock, a pupil at Lanfranc Girls School at the time of the disaster and whose best friend’s brother was one of the victims, spoke to the Advertiser in 2011 about the tragedy.

The plane crashed into a Norwegian mountainside on August 9, 1961 (Image: Ian Austen)

She said: “I was 12 at the time but I can remember the crash had a devastating effect, not just on the families involved but the town as whole.

“Thousands of people lined the route for the funerals and there were at least 1,000 wreaths laid along the way.

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“Croydon was a much smaller and more intimate place then and the crash altered the course of a lot of people’s lives.”

One of the most tragic tails which came out of the crash was the one which involved Quentin Green.

A memorial to the victims at Croydon Cemetery (Image: David Cook)

A flip of a coin enabled the 13-year-old to get the last place on the trip.

But his apparent good luck turned into tragedy, which had a major effect on the life of his sister, who published two books which look into the disaster in great detail.

A rescue helicopter and stretchers at the site of the disaster (Photo by Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Rosalind Jones, who lived with her brother and parents in Norbury at the time, said: “It (the crash) had a terrible impact on the families. My father died from a heart attack three months later and it was down to the crash.

“It was just after the war and everybody felt they had come through that. Then they had their sons suddenly taken away from them, it was awful.”